Thursday, 30 June 2016

Tory Leadership Candidates

The clown Boris Johnson is now out of the Tory leadership race - which is very good news indeed because his anti-E.U. credentials were always suspect. The five confirmed candidates for the leadership are Michael Gove, Theresa May, Andrea Leadsom, Stephen Crabb and Liam Fox. Of these five I would prefer either Gove or Leadsom, though I'm not sure which of the two would be better.

Michael Gove is essentially a like-minded minarchist type who has been trying to reform government from the inside. His anti-E.U. credentials are solid. He consistently argued for non-political solutions to social problems during his time as a regular guest on BBC Radio 4 programmes when I was a postgraduate student in Edinburgh. And the mere fact that the teacher's union hated him is a strong indication that he was doing something right, given that they are overwhelmingly progressive despot and paleo-commie types.

Andrea Leadsom also has solid anti-E.U. credentials like Gove, and she has had a long career in finance and investment banking before becoming an MP and later a Minister in the Treasury and then the Department for Energy & Climate Change. During her time in the latter post she became a strong advocate of fracking and domestic production of natural gas in Lancashire and other places at a time when this was absolutely necessary.

Theresa May would be a very bad choice for two reasons: she was in favour of Britain remaining in the E.U. and she has had a terrible record on civil liberties during her time as Home Secretary.

Stephen Crabb is a junior minister with comparatively little experience, so there isn't much on which to judge him.

Liam Fox has been in frontline politics for a long time, but is unacceptable due to his call for the Guardian to be prosecuted following their publication of Edward Snowden's revelations on electronic surveillance of the public by the NSA and GCHQ.

So it's either Michael Gove or Andrea Leadsom for me, though I'd have difficulty choosing between the two.